All over the country anxious pre-school parents have dreaded this day, the majority heard today whether or not their little darlings had won in the primary school place lottery, I used to scoff at all the Facebook statuses declaring victory of a primary school place, of children getting their first choice and I’m the first one to admit what an idiot I was for scoffing at them.

When Daisy started nursery I never gave a school place a second thought, I have an 18 and a 16 year old and when they were at nursery there wasn’t any worry at all that they wouldn’t be going up into the primary school, you heard of the odd case of a school having no places but it was a rarity back then.

Daisy had been at the nursery only a few months when some of the older children who would be moving up in September got their letters, watching one little boy and his mum heartbroken because he hadn’t got his first choice well and truly opened my eyes to the importance of these place allocations and the effect they can have on both child and parent.

When it came time to fill in our admissions form I felt sick with nerves, Daisy loved going to nursery, she had made some lovely little friends and I had made some new mum friends too so the thought of that all changing was daunting, I pushed it to the back of my mind and forced myself to think positively in fact I put it out of my mind entirely until the start of the spring half term holidays as I knew that the decisions would be made by the time Daisy returned to school.

Unlike most areas we were due to receive our allocations on Friday, I slept terribly on Thursday night, I checked my email every 5 minutes from 6 am and when a letter arrived at 10 am I couldn’t open it quickly enough, we have been incredibly lucky and Daisy has been given her first choice, I actually jumped up and down and screamed with delight the neighbours probably thought I had won the actual lottery, I can’t describe to you the relief I felt in that moment.

It wasn’t good news for everyone sadly, Daisy’s best friend didn’t get a place in fact he got a place at a school that’s a good 45 minute walk away with no direct public transport , Daisy had a little cry when I explained to her they would be going to different schools, returning to school today there was more bad news as some more of her friends hadn’t got places either.

As more and more children lose out on places at schools the problem seems blindingly obvious to me, our population is growing in all our towns and cities, more housing is being built but where are the schools needed to keep up with the growth ?, I’m not a politician or an expert in these matters but even I can see that there just aren’t enough schools for our children.

I now truly appreciate the anxiety of school admissions, being on the other side of the fence has taught be an invaluable lesson and I will be the first to congratulate those statuses about successful admissions and sympathise with those who haven’t been lucky.

Did your child get the place they wanted ? what do you think is the solution to the lack of places ? leave me a comment below I love hearing from you.

Angela xx